Schedule

Questions to Ponder and Discuss

You have just written about what constitutes excellent science? According
to the criteria of your fall semester term paper, is the Snowball Earth
idea excellent science?

Are there any parallels in the controversy between Snowball earth and the
K/T Extinction?

Would you consider Snowball Earth a theory or a hypothesis? Compare to
how the popular press presents Snowball Earth.

Do you detect any bias in the press? If so, where?

How skeptical has the press been about accepting Snowball Earth?

Do you think the press has reported Snowball Earth accurately?

During Snowball Earth, would the snow have been good for making a snowman
or was it that light, fluffy snow that doesn’t stick?

How have journalists tried to make this esoteric Snowball Earth idea pertinent
to modern human beings.

What pieces of what we now call Snowball Earth hypothesis were known prior
to Hoffman & Schrag 1998 paper? What was the contribution of Hoffman
& Schrag 1998?

1989 Los Angeles Times by Thomas Maugh II. This article predates any other
popular article that I have been able to find on Snowball Earth by more
than six years. How do you suppose he did this? And how good a job did he
do under the circumstances?

We have four articles following up immediately (within a week) on the Hoffman
and Schrag 28 Aug 1998 Science paper: New York Times (William K. Stevens),
Robert Boyd for Knight-Ridder Tribune News; BBC, and Science News (Richard
Montastersky). Compare and contrast the four.

The next two articles, in Smithsonian and New Scientist, came out about
a year and a half after the Hoffman and Schrag 1998 Science paper, giving
far more time for reporting and reflection than in the previous four pieces.
Did the year-later magazine journalists do better than within-a-week newspaper
journalists, and if so, how?

Dec 1999, Smithsonian. What point did Trefil overlook or misunderstand?

In Hoffman & Schrag's 2002 review paper in Terra Nova (p. 135), they
cite an LA Times article by Tom Maugh as Kirschivink's first exposition
of the Snowball Earth hypothesis. Why did they do this? Did Kirschivink
and colleagues make a mistake by allowing their results to appear in such
detail in the popular press so long before their papers were published?

We have four pieces reporting on the computer modelling of Hyde et al 2000
(with or without the computer modelling of Chandler et al 2000): Discovery
Channel, Dick Kerr in Science, Curt Suplee in Washington Post, BBC News,
P.Weiss in Science News. Which does the best job of conveying the process
of using a computer model to test a geoscience hypothesis?

P. Weiss (of the post-Hyde articles) casts Hyde's results as an "alternative
to the snowball theory's ice-engulfed planet" whereas Curt Suplee casts
Hyde's results as "Some doubts about the snowball hypothesis may have
been alliviated." How would you characterize the relationship between
Hyde's modelling and H&S's theory.

22 March 2001, transcript of Earth and Sky radio show. Is such a short
piece on such a complicated subject useful?

8 Mar 2002, transcript of Horizon program on BBC. What has this long video
format allowed the BBC to do that media weren't able to do?

What strategies have journalists used to cover challenges to the Snowball
idea?

Popular Articles: Development of the
Hypothesis

Maugh, Thomas, H. II, ‘Completely Different’ evolution idea super
ice age gave life on earth growing pains series: In the beginning. The search
for the origins of life. Second in a series, Los Angeles Times, September
7, 1989.